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 Jono
   
civilly disobedient.
 |  |  | Brewster.and.Me
< on 9/2/2012 7:10 PM >
|  | | | A short photo-essay. Some snaps may have been cross-posted, so apologies...
Brewster and Me.
Exploring one of Detroit’s most notorious abandoned housing projects
This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Brewster-Douglass housing projects of Detroit Michigan, and there is nothing to celebrate. More accurately, there is no one to celebrate. For several years now this area of the city already infamous for its vacancy has been completely abandoned. Rows of houses, full apartment blocks, schools -- the whole deal, empty.
A cursory Google search will reveal many details regarding the architecture and planning employed at Brewster-Douglass, as well as details of its people. Diana Ross lived there -- Wikipedia told me that. For my part, I didn’t want an explanation, but an experience.
Throughout my years as an urban archeologist (an entirely fictitious title created to legitimate my somewhat antisocial tendencies), I have encountered and explored many beautiful and surreal derelict places. Churches, schools, insane asylums, power stations, you name it -- many of these in Detroit itself. An entire abandoned neighborhood, though, had eluded my experience. Brewster-Douglass seemed like a good fit, the logical next step in my seemingly unending quest to photograph unseen urban space. In this regard, housing is perhaps easier to identify with. It was a subject that would hit close to home.
My online research regarding the Brewster-Douglass projects revealed almost nothing as to the current internal state of the buildings. Friends would later tell me that even local explorers don’t venture inside the towers. My bad -- I wasn’t aware that this game has rules. It was time to take a drive to Michigan.
On my initial pass of the massive property, I noticed that even the window-frames had been stripped from the four remaining 1952 brick towers. The roofs of the houses were torn to ribbons. This was going to be something else.
The car had to be stashed in some bushes, and where I would usually wait for traffic to die down before entry, I merely crossed the street -- not a car could be seen. A maze of walkways made almost invisible by the overgrowth lead me past several rows of abandoned townhouses to a square, each corner marked by a virtually identical 14-storey red brick tower. Save for two benches, most of everything built there has been smashed to bits.
"Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men”, writes noted Chicago photographer Richard Nickel. The clouds in the sky that day were light, and there was no one around. So much for great architecture; this was Pruitt-Igoe without the wrecking ball. Let’s make a pilot for a television show here. We can call it ‘What Not to Plan’. I could see right through one house. Nature had made a convertible of its neighbor. Richard Nickel was buried alive when a section of a building he was documenting collapsed. I had better take care.
From the roof of one of the towers, I gained a clearer view of the pathways below, which describe great arcs between the buildings. In the middle sits the remains of a wooden playground, now splintered, scattered and sprayed. Here it is, Le Corbusier’s Radiant City -- in ruin. I’ve found Paradise Lost, The Waste Land. If what I was seeing isn’t poetry, then I don’t know what is.
I always prefer a qualitative over a quantitative approach to documenting my urban experiences. An environment’s current use is usually the leading motivational force behind my documentation of it. If I were filling out a form for Brewster-Douglass, it would have many blank spaces, like the projects themselves -- ‘not applicable’.
To understand Brewster-Douglass, one would have to understand Detroit. To understand Detroit, one would have to know the nature of the built environment, understand urban racial issues, the nature of the growth of cities, the nature of suburbs (‘sprawl’), and the nature of social demography. Economics might help as well. I do not pretend to understand any of these with any authority. I take photographs, and no, I don’t do weddings.
I sit in front of my computer in comfort now, writing this. Adobe Lightroom is open, and beside me is a small stack of prints from Detroit, and some negatives. Somewhere, Facebook beckons. I am allowed in comfort to remember Brewster-Douglass as I saw it that morning. The photographs help.
Supposedly, plans for demolition of the Brewster-Douglass ruins have been set, in order to make room for new housing developments. But like so much news from Detroit, I will believe it when I see it. Or more precisely, when I no longer can.
j->
www.sacramentalperception.com : www.jonathancastellino.com |
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Rozz
Location: The Whales Vagina, CA
Gender: Female
I'm Reich and You're Wrong
| | | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 1 on 9/2/2012 7:32 PM >
| | | | Will you marry me?
Everything about this post is pure awesomeness. The writeup is stellar. The history, your descriptive writing and perspective is perfect.
I'm a huge fan of your photography anyway but the way you put your pictures together is amazing. Beautiful photography, I love all the pictures. I especially love the last set with the city skyline, abandoned housing units and then the barbed wire photo next to it. I would buy this and put it up in my house.
I got done reading this thread and looking at the pictures and felt like I had been there with you!! Thats the way it should be.
Ok me and my hard-on are going to exit stage left now.....
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DSomms
Location: Detroit
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 2 on 9/2/2012 7:33 PM >
| | | | The first steps into the rec center here, for me at least, yielded an overwhelming stench of cat and/or homeless piss. Did you smell that as well?
edit: we met this dude here. his name is Antonio and that is my beer in his hand.1.
[last edit 9/2/2012 7:36 PM by DSomms - edited 1 times]
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tax_mouse
 
Location: SACRAMENTO, CA
Gender: Female
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 3 on 9/2/2012 10:26 PM >
| | | | Fitting shirt Antonio is wearing. Says alot about the times we live in and the location in itself.
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C-Note
Location: Delawhere
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 4 on 9/3/2012 12:00 AM >
| | | | great story and shots. well done (no steak)
http://www.colinsuber.com |
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swizzler
Location: Ontario
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 5 on 9/3/2012 12:24 AM >
| | | | Great shots and write up! You pass with an A+.
Canon EOS 5DMKII | EF 24-105 f/4L | EF 17-40 f/4L | EF 50mm f/1.8 II | Yashica Electro 35 GS |
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Sands
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 6 on 9/3/2012 2:12 AM >
| | | | Great write up and pictures! Your shots work harmoniously with your words and give help give them an even more sense of being forgotten and desolate.
Find yourself in the unknown. |
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Jono
civilly disobedient.
| | | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 7 on 9/3/2012 4:56 AM >
| | | | Thanks, folks!
DSomms: I actually didn't go into that building; something seemed 'off'. From one of the tower roofs, I saw 2 police cruisers drive along on the other side of it, so I kept away for that reason also.
Rozz: If I marry you, it'd have to be in an abandoned church ; P
j->
www.sacramentalperception.com : www.jonathancastellino.com |
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Jono
civilly disobedient.
| | | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 9 on 9/4/2012 3:51 AM >
| | | | Filth: I think B-D is more of an 'experience' thing than a 'beauty in decay' thing. I couldn't agree more about the architecture. That being said, on that scale, it is pretty impressive...
j->
www.sacramentalperception.com : www.jonathancastellino.com |
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RescueMe1060
  
Location: San Francisco
Gender: Male
Radioactivity, its in the air for you & me
| | Re: Brewster.and.Me
<Reply # 11 on 9/5/2012 1:33 AM >
| | | | Posted by tax_mouse
Fitting shirt Antonio is wearing. Says alot about the times we live in and the location in itself.
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+10
http://www.flickr....rescueme1060/sets/
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